


Again and Again and Again

by WarriorBeeoftheSea



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Canon Compliant, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Book 2: Wayward Son, Wing Grooming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25489747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarriorBeeoftheSea/pseuds/WarriorBeeoftheSea
Summary: Written for the Golden Days Zine
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 11
Kudos: 204
Collections: Golden Days: a Simon Snow Series zine





	Again and Again and Again

**Author's Note:**

> Stay tuned for the gorgeous art by Duod!

"It doesn't go away. Not in my experience."

"What doesn't?"

Baz pauses, like he's thinking how to word it. "The grief." His fingers skate across the top edge of my wing. "Sometimes it's just part of you."

I twist to look up at him. "An ugly part of me."

"No, it's—" He stops himself, searches my face. "It's part of who you _are_. And I—" He falters, swallows, begins again. "It's part of you, and I _love_ you."

My breath catches. This is not what I expected him to say. 

—

_"You've just been soaping them in the shower?" I pull his wing taut and rub my thumb over a dry, flaky patch of red skin._

_Simon jerks the wing away from my grasp, goes back to scratching at it. "Yeah, that's how you keep clean, yeah? Soap?"_

_"Snow." I rub my fingers over my brow. "Please don't tell me you wash your face and hair with bar soap, too."_

_His face flushes, and he frowns at me. "Well, not_ anymore _, all right?"_

_I don't know who taught my boyfriend the basics of skin and haircare, but I'm thankful that job didn't fall to me. At least until now._

_"Your wings need to be cared for, same as your face."_

_I must be making my_ how could you not know that? _face, because he looks at me hard. "Who would have taught me that, Baz? I don't exactly have a devil-winged mentor to teach me."_

—

 _I'm lying face down across Baz's giant bed, and he has my wing spread out across his lap. I'm near dozing, my face pressed into a pillow, and he's rubbing gently at my skin._ I've not been in Baz's bed before, _I think drowsily._

_"All right, so I did research on how to care for lizard skin."_

_I startle a bit and raise my head to look at him. He's reading from his phone. "Why not dragon skin?"_

_He gives me a look. "No one keeps dragons as_ pets, _Snow. I had to look to the closest approximation I could find. Pet lizards."_

_I settle back into the pillow. "I'm not a pet."_

_I can almost feel his smirk as he runs a finger down my bare spine. I press up into the touch, and he doesn't say anything._

_"Anyway,_ pet _,_ _it says here that I should keep your habitat humid enough, make sure your molting skin doesn't get caught in your toes, and rub you with mineral oil if needed."_

_"I don't molt."_

_"And I don't really have a say in the humidity of your cage, so I figured we could focus on the oil."_

_I near sputter._

—

Simon is twisting underneath the brace of my arm over him. I move the bowl of oil before he upends it. 

He’s sitting up, pressing up on his hands, and he’s searching my face.

_Yes, Simon Snow, I said I love you._

His jaw tightens, and I realize he’s going to put up a fight.

“Raw deal for you, mate.” He’s trying to make a joke out of it. “I’m not much fun to love.”

He shifts to sit up on his legs, turning towards me. He’s leaning into my space, crowding me. 

I lower my eyes and tip forward, wanting to press my forehead to his and breathe his breath. I wait for him to close the distance.

He does.

—

_Baz is smoothing oil over a spot on my wing, rubbing in little circles with a corner of a flannel. I press my face fully into the pillow to hide the sigh that slips from me, but I know he must see my back rise and fall with it._

_I tip my face toward him again. “What’s the oil meant to do?”_

_He’s sat cross legged on the bed with my wing stretched cross his lap. He’s frowning in concentration, sucking on his teeth. “Hmm?” He rubs the spot again, and I let my eyes flutter closed when he pulls the flannel away and rubs his thumb across the skin._

_My heart beats a little faster. “The oil?”_

_“Oh! It’s meant to loosen the dead skin.”_

—

My lover is near melting in my bed _,_ _I muse as I feel Simon go boneless under my hands._

Not lover, _I correct myself._ Not yet.

_His tail curls around my calf and tightens._

Maybe soon.

_His skin is warm under my hands, especially where I smooth them over his wings. I wouldn’t expect his wings to be so warm, but they pulse with the fire of him just like any other part._

_He’s letting me touch him. An intimate touch, albeit a chaste one._

—

 _I’m a raw deal,_ I tell myself again. But my face is pressed close to Baz’s and I want to let him have me, even so. 

“I know,” he finally whispers. 

I nod against him. “I’m all monster parts and ugly feelings.” 

He laughs wetly, and I am surprised when I look at his face to find him crying. 

“It would be easier if you didn’t,” I whisper. _(Please don’t listen to me.)_ “Love me, I mean.” 

He presses his hand against the back of my neck, like he wants to make sure I don’t pull away. “Maybe so.” He runs his fingers over the buzzed hair on my nape. “But I do anyway.”

—

_Simon's face is pressed against my pillow, and I almost don't hear him. "What was that?"_

_He turns his face towards me. "I said, Dr. Wellbelove says he can take them away. When I want."_

_My hands still. "Oh." I think he's holding his breath, tensing under my fingers while he waits for a more telling reaction than_ ‘oh _’._

 _But I don't know what to say, so I move to a new patch of wing and start rubbing at it with the flannel._

—

_"Is that what you want?" Baz murmurs after a long while, and I think I'd started to doze off. Still, I know exactly what he's talking about._

_"I don't know." I swallow. Getting rid of my wings sounds like what I want. But it feels..._

_I can't bear how it feels, so I squeeze my eyes shut and let my thoughts dart away from the idea._

_"Hey." He must feel me shutting down. "You're putting it on the list, aren't you?"_

_The list of things not to think about, he means. There's a lot on that list now. He knows about some of it._

—

Simon closes his eyes and frowns, but he's pressing into my touch. 

"I'm going to keep choosing you, love."

He tries to laugh. "Even if I give up my remaining super powers?" He flicks his wings behind him, and his face falls. I press my free palm to his cheek and rub my thumb over the side of his nose. 

"Even if you decide to keep them."

He's trying to think of something stupid to say. 

—

_I try to hold onto the thought. Something catches in my chest, and I think it might be fear. Baz's hands are on my back, and for a moment I panic and I imagine them pushing the breath out of me._

_But then he's dragging fingers down the edge of my wing and I realize it's me. I'm holding my breath._

_My heart pounds in my ears, and I imagine it punching through my ribcage into Baz's mattress below me._

_I want it to slow. I want to breathe._

Tell him. 

—

 _Simon is slipping away from me._ Come back, love.

_I want to push him and pull him all at once._

_He's working his jaw, and I wait for him to speak. "I just want to stop feeling this way. Will I ever stop feeling this way?"_

_"Feeling like what?"_

_"Like I've lost everything. Like I've lost myself."_

—

My chest hurts when Baz looks at me like this.

He's touching my face, and looking at me, and my heart nearly breaks. 

He pulls me closer with the hand cradling my neck, and presses a kiss to my cheek. "It's all right, love," he whispers so close, I feel the vibration of his voice on my skin. "You'll be all right." He tips his head down and presses his forehead to my temple. "I'm here. I'm still here." His voice is watery and low, and all of a sudden I ache to hold him. I need every part of me surrounding him. 

I push gently against his shoulders, and he makes a faint sound but yields to my hands. "Shh," I whisper. "Hold on, just—" I keep pushing him until there's enough room. And I take a breath and climb onto his lap. 

I wrap both legs around him, and I tip his face up to look at me. "I'm here, too," I whisper. 

_Baz Pitch, I'll choose you again and again and again._

The words don't come, but I close the space between us, our noses nearly bumping, and I pretend that I can breathe them into his lungs, his heart, and that he'll know. 

His eyes narrow, but his gaze remains fixed on me. "I love you," he breathes. "I love every part of you."

A feeling blooms in my throat and creeps up my face. I don't know what it is, but then I almost never do. It pricks the back of my eyes and tightens in my chest. 

"Say it again."

"I love you." 

I almost make him say it again. Instead I say it back to him the way I know how. 

With a kiss. 


End file.
